Electronic Civil Disobedience: Screenings of Video Art 1993-2017

Res., 25 June + 9 July 2017

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Danielle Dean; Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Adriene Jenik, Roberto Sifuentes; Branda Miller; Anna Mikkola; Paper Tiger TV; Molly Soda; Cornelia Sollfrank

 

Electronic Civil Disobedience presents two screenings inspired by curator Kathy Rae Huffman, a pioneer across the fields of media art, cyberfeminism and net.art. It includes video spanning 1993 to 2017.

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With optimism for a democratising digital revolution in the early years of the Internet, artists in the ‘80s and ‘90s were quick to explore the creative and political potential of the new rapidly-proliferating personal devices and communication technologies that began shaping one’s time and social interactions. Cyberfeminists like Cornelia Sollfrank staked a claim in a male-dominated tech industry, whilst Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) advocated an activist approach to hacking.

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The event name comes from Critical Art Ensemble’s book Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas, which suggests that power lies in information-capital and as such, we need “new methods of disruption invented that attack power (non)centers on the electronic level” – Critical Art Ensemble, Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas, Autonomedia, 1996, p.9.

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By appropriating various elements of the media, from the language of advertising to online dating, the participating artists determine their mediated identities for themselves. At the same time, technologies from the camcorder to the webcam give unprecedented opportunities for image-making and self-representation.

 

Supported by the Goldsmiths Art Department.